Elsewhere

Before I get busy with my day, I wanted to quickly give a shoutout to this video – Pir Jalani, from Coke Studio (Clinton Cerejo and Mangey ‘Manga’ Khan; music by Clinton Cerejo). It’s a fusion song – a traditional composition featuring lyrics in some Indian language I don’t know as well as Hindi. That’s what I have been on listening since day-before yesterday night when I first discovered it. I love the mix of the raw singing of Mangey Khan with the softer singing of Clinton Cerejo and the music – which is are sort of opposite to the raw singing and yet complements it and the two get along together very well. The song starts off in a very traditional way but quickly develops layers and becomes something else altogether! Loved it! (I especially loved the trombones and trumpets – totally didn’t expect that!)

Coke Studio has some good songs. Here’s a few off the top of my head (note: I have updated this list since my original posting):

Madari (Vishal Dadlani, Sonu Kakkar; music by Clinton Cerejo) – a powerful song; both Vishal Dadlani & Sonu Kakkar shine with their voice through this song.

Ambwa Taley (Javed Bashir, Humera Channa) – I don’t think I can even describe what I feel about this song; the singing is so strong and touching.

Aao Balma (Padmabhushan Ustad Ghulam Mustafa Khan, Murtuza Mustafa, Qadir Mustafa, Rabbani Mustafa, Hasan Mustafa, Faiz Mustafa; music by A.R. Rahman) – I discovered this early morning one day when I was woken up as I was on-call at work and couldn’t go to sleep after that; listening to this just blew my mind and I think I spent the whole day and the next few listening to this on loop.

Naariyan (Shalmali Kholgade, Karthik, Amit Trivedi; music by Amit Trivedi) – an upbeat number, different to the rest; less Indian sounding. One thing about Amit Trivedi is that you can expect various sounds, different instruments, and he manages to mix them all together. Fun lyrics too, this one!

Rabba (Amit Trivedi, Tochi Raina, Jaggi; music by Amit Trivedi) – I wasn’t so hot about this song initially but it slowly catches on to you.

One thing I noticed (an obvious observation, but I wanted to mention anyways) is how the headphones I use seems to enhance the music. My favorite way of listening to such music is via the Sennheiser HD 558. These are probably my favorite headphones – not practical to carry around or even use with others around – but they are super comfortable and open-backed (which is why I can’t use it with others around as it lets the music out and also lets in sound from outside; but this enhances the sound quality I think) and they just add “something” to the music. It’s like it lets the music/ the instruments “free” – gives them more space, so to say, a wider feeling … difficult to describe. It adds something to the whole experience.

Apart from this I also listen to music via the Sennheiser PXC 550 which I previously mentioned, Bragi Dash, Bose SoundSport, and SoundMagic E10 & E10S (mostly E10S). The order in which I mentioned is the order in which I rank their music quality. It is not a huge difference, but I always notice a difference between these headphones. Each has its pros and cons which is why I use them, so I don’t judge their sound quality difference against them – but until a few years ago (which is when I started noticing this and began investing in good headphones) I wouldn’t have imagined headphones to make that much of a difference (and even now, like I said, it’s not a huge difference – it’s subtle, and may not matter to all, but it matters to me and makes a difference to me in the way I enjoy and appreciate the music).

Enjoy the music! Such amazing talent.

Update: Some more (non Coke Studio songs):

Neeye (Yazin Nizar, Sharanya Srinivas; music by Phani Kalyan) – amazing music, and the male singer has such a wonderful voice!